The last few years have been troubled for the Gnome Project. Once a premier desktop environment for Linux, it has seen its market share diminish amid user dissatisfaction over Gnome 3 and accusations that the project was ignoring users. Yet, over the last six months, something important has been happening: Slowly and quietly, the members of Gnome have started trying to turn the situation around.

Canonical’s persistent efforts to perfect the new age Unity desktop for Ubuntu Linux has gotten them in trouble with lots of long-term users, but the Ubuntu project is always quick to point out to the critics: “This is Linux. If you don’t like the desktop, change it!”